T-Mobile, AT&T oppose unlocking rule, claim locked phones are good for users

Locked phones don't enable subsidized deals though. We still have subsidized deals in the UK but locking is a thing of the past. In fact they have started explicitly calling it like it is and breaking the price down into payments for the plan and payments for the phone, which stop once you've paid it off.

That is a perfectly reasonable argument. My point was that Ars' headline was deliberately misleading. Note that the article doesn't go into any real depth about alternative financing plans.

I have to assume that you ultimately pay more in the UK then, because what prevents users from stopping paying after the first month, and switching to a cheaper plan with another provider, and keeping the phone?

Companies aren't going to repossess your phone the way it's worth it to repossess your car or house if you stop repaying your loan.

So it raises the overall price because the companies charge more in order to offset the losses of people who effectively steal the phones they never finished paying for.

If you really don't like the article, you can always read the FCC statement instead: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/1017178290200/1

But I know linking to a PDF will put some people off. It's a fairly short response this time as well.

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>handsets that are free or heavily discounted off the manufacturer's suggested retail price.

You do it by increasing contract prices and being able to collect a phone if you don't stay with the often 2-year contract for stuff like this. The final price is also much more expensive than buying outright.

This is a bit silly in am age where phone tech has plateaued and you can often get last year flagships for half the price at launch. Consumers don't need the newest phone at all.

>T-Mobile’s current unlocking policies also help T- Mobile combat handset theft and fraud by sophisticated, international criminal organizations.

All androids and iphones have built in find - my - phone features these days, as well as the ability to wipe remotely. Phones are one of the least useful things to try and steal these days as a result, up there with a credit card. You can still get info and pawn off a wiped phone, but I don't see what T-Mobile does to prevent that further.

>because the proposal would force providers to reduce the line-up of their most compelling handset offers. T

Sprint already was reducing lineups, even before the acquisition. And they don't really subsidize anymore. That's why I started buying my own phones. The T-Mobile store was just the Galaxy/IPhone store, featuring overly expensive otter cases.

>T-Mobile maintains that the Commission lacks authority to adopt the proposed rule

They really pulling off the Chevron defense (assumedly, it's in another document) with no hesitation, huh? I guess we'll see how that goes. I'm not going to pretend I know the full ramifications of how it will affect the FCC.

>however, a provider subject to FCC-imposed asymmetric regulation on handset unlocking seeks to modify its commitments

Sounds like a horrible loophole to extend the policy as long as possible. So, no. They don't even provide much of an argument for when and where and what should be modified.

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Clickbait or not, I'm not really liking the arguments either way.

> because what prevents users from stopping paying after the first month, and switching to a cheaper plan with another provider, and keeping the phone?

Same as what stops you breaking a contract and not paying any other debt: They'll start the collections process on you.

Yep, same in Canada. A phone contract shows up on your credit report (since you pay at the end of the month for the service received during the month) and if you were to not pay the penalty, the outstanding debt would show up there.

IIRC, years ago there was an EU directive forcing phone companies to separate service contracts and device payment plans. Network locking still exists, but unlock codes need to be free after you've paid off the phone. This leads to a situation here (Ireland) where some people are billed monthly for their phone itself, but the have a pre-pay plan on the sim card inside.

I thought the US had made a similar change banning that kind of co-mingling of charges.

But the reality is that people who don't pay their phone contract tend to be the kinds of people who just ignore collections anyways and have a bad credit score to begin with.

That's the problem with small debts, and why phone locking was a clever solution -- if the phone becomes useless when you stop paying, people will actually pay it off when they wouldn't have before.

> and have a bad credit score to begin with.

If they already have a bad credit score, then the carrier giving them an expensive phone without upfront payment is kinda on the carrier.

I think there's probably a significant net benefit to society from forcing carriers to unlock phones by default. If you're overseas, or need to temporarily use another carrier - you can.

If a carrier is not willing to carry the risk that someone who has bad credit might break the contract for an expensive phone - then I think perhaps that's not such a bad thing.

> and have a bad credit score to begin with.

They do a credit check for these deals. They wouldn't be able to get the deal if they have bad credit.